The present invention relates generally to spacecraft, and more particularly, to a cooling system employing loop heat pipes for use on a spacecraft.
The assignee of the present invention manufactures and deploys spacecraft containing communication equipment that orbit the earth. Heretofore, fixed conductance heat pipes have been used to transport heat from internal equipment panels housing the communication equipment to external radiator panels. Such fixed conductance heat pipes are disclosed in French Patent 2,463,058, for example. Aft deployable thermal radiators using loop heat pipes are disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/54396, filed Sep. 16, 1998, assigned to the assignee of the present invention. However, loop heat pipes have not heretofore been used to provide cooling between internal equipment panels and external radiator panels.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have an improved loop heat pipe cooling system for use on a spacecraft.
The present invention provides for a loop heat pipe cooling system that provides efficient thermal pathways between spacecraft equipment mounted on any number of internal equipment panels to a combination of multi-directional facing radiator panels. Loop heat pipes employed in the cooling system may be routed from the internal equipment panels to one or more radiator panels in order to optimize spacecraft heat sharing between radiator panels. This improves the overall efficiency of the radiator panels.
Loop heat pipes are similarly distributed and routed for each of the internally located equipment panels, although this is not an absolute requirement. Heat is collected at evaporator ends of each loop heat pipe and then transported to condenser ends of the loop heat pipes.
The condenser end of each loop heat pipe may either be embedded within the radiator panel as to provide a direct condensing loop heat pipe radiator panel or externally mounted to the radiator panel as a loop heat pipe condensing flange. Fixed conductance heat pipes may additionally be used in any or all of the internal panels and radiator panels in order to collect and distribute heat loads to and from the loop heat pipes.
The loop heat pipes used in the cooling system have a much higher heat transport capability than fixed conductance heat pipes. The loop heat pipes used in the cooling system are flexible and easily routed. The loop heat pipes used in the cooling system can be routed to multiple radiator panels in order to optimize heat sharing between radiator panels.